


Every step that you take

by koropendora



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koropendora/pseuds/koropendora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lots of drabbles and short stories for the 400 theme prompts. All of these are original content, so they're getting shoved here all together. Fanfic will get their own entries for organizational purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Six degrees of separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 117 - Web

They say that everyone is separated by six degrees. So, through six friends, you can reach anyone in the world.

Although that's more of a myth or a saying than a proved certainty, there is wisdom behind those words.

Yes, the world is like a web. A single string is connected to another string, which is connected to two more, that are connected to four more, and when you realize it, you've already reached the corners.

That, in a way, is his objective; to see all there is to see, to reach every single corner of the world, to meet every person, to hear every voice and every story.

There has to be, somewhere in this world, in this universe, someone who can help him. There just has to.


	2. Protoplanet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 039 - Animal

The legends go on and on about how they had been created as caretakers, as shields for the "humans" to be protected by the harshness of the planet they were banished to.

Yet now they hide, for humans are intolerant and larger than life; they shun everything that is different from them.  
Animals have a beastly form, and a humanoid form. All of them do; they were designed as the perfect midpoint between humans and dragons.

Most animals no longer remember their noble purpose, their reason to exist, their special traits. They are nothing but instincts and emotions.

The few that do hide away in little settlements out of man's way.

 

There, she waits; the one who's neither beast nor human, or man nor woman. The one who doesn't fit here, in a town of animals, nor did she fit there, with men.

 

She waits for the one she serves, the one she was created -- built -- for; and there she will wait for centuries, for she is home and hearth and the warmth of the bonfire, and she'll welcome all who need a place to be when they don't fit anywhere else.


	3. Princesses and Servants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe they were once a princess and a servant, but they are nothing but two friends sitting on a couch, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 171 - Video Game  
> Weird [Akagi and Leila](http://fourze.tumblr.com/post/116245267375/oh-yeah-i-forgot-to-post-this-some-lazy-leila) [thing](http://fourze.tumblr.com/post/127756236225/one-more).

"Princesses do not marry servants", he states matter-of-factly.  
After a pause, she adjusts herself, leaning further into his figure, and replies, "Shall I point out how many things are wrong with that sentence?"  
"Not like I can stop you."

After the adventures ended, this has become some kind of a routine for them; it naturally came to be with no particular pushing from either side.  
They sit together on the couch, him like a normal person should, while she lies horizontally and rests her back against his arm. And they talk, while playing video games or watching cartoons. They talk of things they wouldn't share with anyone else.  
To any outsider, it would seem like they're so absorbed in their activity that they're not even aware of each other's presence. To them, it was just how they rolled.

"Starting with the obvious, you haven't been a servant for something like twenty years." She doesn't take her eyes off her portable console while she speaks. "That's longer than my own time of existence in this puny little world."  
He considers the argument quickly as he pushes buttons. "Fair enough." And doesn't lift his eyes off his own game system, either.  
"Then there's also the fact that I'm far from being a princess. Officially, I would be a prince." He disapproves of the way she words it, but doesn't object. "The kingdom of angels has a much more proper crown prince than me and my brother, the illegitimate children; and I'm almost sure my biological mother was exiled from the lunar kingdom. At this point in time, I am in no way royalty."

"That's what you say." He huffs as he launches a particularly nasty attack in his game, looking almost proud of himself. "Are you sure you're not just trying to convince yourself of that?"  
"Well-- Did you really have to kill my poor lopunny like this?" Despite grieving for her Pokemon's defeat, she appears unfazed. "Well, that may be true, but do I really look like princess material?"  
"Depends on who you ask. Also, you suck at this game."  
"I'm asking you."

They're a pair of few words, always direct and mostly honest. They get along.

"You kinda do." He once again demonstrates that proud expression, accompanied by a smirk. "You sure behave like a spoiled princess most of the time."  
"What's that supposed to mean?" She sighs, her in-game defeat imminent as she throws her last Pokemon to its doom. "Your attitude and sharp tongue make it hard to believe you were an obedient servant at any point of your life, y'know."  
"Seem I've had a full recovery, then." He calmly closes his eyes as the results of their long battle become official; yet another win for him.  
"Lame." She closes her DS and slides down, bringing her head from his shoulder to his lap. "Would you consider it, though? If a time ever came when a princess asked to marry you."

With this match, he had 31 victories and 4 losses over her.

"If she's fine with marrying undead ex-slaves, sure, why not. I'm sure by the time she proposed such a thing we'd already be close friends, anyway."  
"It's not like I'm much more alive than you."  
"No one said we're talking about you specifically. I could befriend other princesses. Alive princesses. I don't even care."  
"Jerk." She turns to lay on her side, the back of her head pressing against his hip. "Either way, you can't call me princess. My ex already used that nickname."  
"What, is this a website registration? Sorry, this nickname is already taken?"  
"Yep."  
"I'll make sure to find a new one by the time you decide to ask me to be your boyfriend, then." His hand rests gently on her head, fingers slowly running through her hair, in a timid caress attempt. "But until then, you're still my princess, and princesses don't marry servants. Specially when she can't even beat him at Pokemon."


	4. Almost There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akito is so close to figuring it out, but now his insecurity eats away at him. Thankfully, he isn't alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 083 - What if…

From the window in the hotel room, he watches with his red eyes, his brown hair swaying gently in the breeze, the light of the rising sun giving his dark skin a certain glow.  
Life in this world seems different from his own, somehow, and maybe if he stopped to pay attention he could figure out what it is.  
Akito has so much to discover, yet. About this world, about himself, about his old friends and family. About Alessa.  
He sighs. That girl better appreciate everything they went through just to find her. And when they do... then what? What's going to happen with his life? Will everything change? Will nothing change?

His train of thought is interrupted when he notices movement from behind him.

"Ah... Akito?" A tiny voice (not in tone, no, the voice was deeper than his own; but also nervous, quiet, permanently scared) approaches him, with an old anxiety-induced stutter that never left. "You're... A-Awake, I see."

He doesn't bother looking back. He's memorized the view by now: chin length blond hair that sticks up in weird directions, freckles decorating otherwise flawless white skin, lips and blue eyes always in a frown. The view that he loved the most. "Couldn't really sleep."

"Ah, I noticed... Since you g-got up in the middle of the night..." God, the way Ichabod speaks always makes him feel so _guilty_. He always sounds like a puppy. One that just got kicked and abandoned. In the rain.

"I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"Oh n-no! You didn't! I had. T-Trouble sleeping, too." He waves his hands frantically, as if his life depended on explaining this slight misunderstanding.

Akito gives him a teasing grin. "Nervous?" He says, as if he wasn't nervous himself.

"A... A bit..." Ichabod picks on his fingers as if there was something very interesting under his fingernails. "It's kind of exciting, isn't it? When we reach the city, we m-might end up finding your family...!"

Hearing that, Akito feels something very similar to a punch in the gut, and grunts. "Yeah, we might."

The blond boy blinks, the gears in his head spinning, trying to make sense of the response. He approaches the brunette and leans next to him, into the window. "Are... _you_ nervous? Ah-- I mean, you're normally this brooding and all, b-but you were excited just the other day..."

"Hm. I guess the finality of this is finally sinking in. Or rather, the possibility that it won't be final at all. I don't freaking know." Akito sighs again and rests his head on his hand, and stares intently at the horizon.

"Do you want to... t-talk about it?"

"Huh?"

"Y'know, share your feelings... And stuff... Not co... communicating was what put us all in that mess, back then, wasn't it? S-So..." Ichabod was staring at his hand so hard it felt like he could burn a hole through them, if his own fingers didn't tear one soon enough.

But he _was_ right - if they'd only stopped and talked about how they felt, things wouldn't have gotten so bad. Akito knows as much. "Well... I guess it wouldn't hurt..." Akito turns away from the window and leans back, with his elbows outside the window's frame.

Ichabod does the same and looks at him, big blue eyes wide with curiosity, ready for listening. Again, it's hard to ignore a begging puppy face like his.

"I guess... I'm happy like this - I have no memory of my life before I woke up at 17 years old in an empty house, but I made some great friends, I have a cute boyfriend--" (Ichabod jumps a bit and averts his eyes in response, a blush threatening to creep into his cheeks--) "And, you know, I can't miss someone I've never met. I don't miss my childhood friends, or my family, because as far as I know I don't have any."

Ichabod nods with a little noise, indicating him to go on, so he does. "But I guess... that would be unfair to them... I didn't lose anyone, but they may have lost a son or a friend. Maybe out there, there's someone grieving for me still. So I'd like to meet them, if only to let them know I'm alive..."

"That's why w-- we're here, right?" Ichabod nods again and looks towards him, with a calm smile that makes Akito feel a bit embarrassed, for some reason. "So what's the problem?"

Akito takes a deep breath. "I don't know who these people are. I don't know if and how my life's going to change once I find them. Maybe I find out I still really like the friends I used to have, or maybe I'll still like you guys better? Maybe my parents are a drag, or maybe I'll want to go back to live with them? What if I had-- uh--" He trips over this part a bit, and it takes a few more tries to get it out, with him staring at the wall opposite to Ichabod to avoid as much eye contact as possible. "What if I had... _someone else_? It's not like I'd stop liking you, but..."

Noticing Akito has trailed off, Ichabod delivers, "Hmm, then I don't think I'd really mind it." With a level of confidence uncharacteristic to him. Akito looks at him with wide eyes. "I mean... If you find out you liked your old friends best, then that's that. A-- As long as they don't force you t-to change into someone else, I wouldn't mind. If they care about you, t-they'll probably understand."

The brunette scans Ichabod's expression, dumbfounded, and after a few moments, he laughs. "That's very mature of you. Sometimes I forget you're older than me."

"I don't think... it's got much to do with age..." He rubs the back of his neck, messing up his blond hair a bit. "The whole reason why I'm here is b-because I wanted you to be happy, so... It'd be silly to say, no, I don't want you to care about the hy-- hypothetical people we'll meet."

"Jesus, stop that! I'm getting embarrassed!" He frowns, punching Ichabod's arm lightly. "Is this a plot to make me blush?"

"Ahaha, not really, b-but I wouldn't mind if you _did_ blush..."

After a few moments, when they're done giggling, Ichabod starts talking again. "But, again... We're doing this f-for you, so if you want to give up and go back, I don't... I don't mind."

Akito, somewhat speechless, gestures wildly while trying to find words - it takes nearly a whole minute. "You left everything behind, though. Your house and family... Just for this. I wouldn't feel right if we just went back with nothing to show for it." He crosses his arms and sighs. "Plus, there's still the fact that I want to at least let my folks know that I'm alive and stuff..."

"That's it, then." Ichabod smiles, and Akito feels that thing again-- he wonders if that's what people mean when they say their heart 'leaps', or 'skips a beat'. "We'll figure out wh-what to do after that when we get to it, o... okay? Don't worry so much. Y-Your hair'll start going gray..."

"Ha ha. My hair's already gray, you joker." Akito puffs his cheeks childishly, but soon it subsides and turns into a small, but genuine smile. "I guess you're right... There's no use fussing over it right now, is there...?"

"Not really!" He stands up straight, no longer leaning against the window, and takes a few steps towards the door. "C-Come on, we should probably get breakfast... We have to check out at t-thirteen, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

Akito takes one last look at the view from his window, the tall buildings in the distance, the sun that looks just a tad bit different from the one in his own world, and smiles.

He doesn't know what the future will bring, or what to do about it when it's no longer "the future", but he'll figure it out, someday.


	5. roses, in bloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 149 - Relationship

When he’s seven years old, a new family moves into his neighborhood. He’s not talkative or much interested in playing outside, vastly preferring old dusty books from their library. His mother drags him out to meet them anyway, because it’s the polite thing to do, she says.

The Kuze family is odd and old-fashioned, he thinks. They are wearing kimonos and having a very fancy meal, with neatly separated portions and servings. They’re a small family; just the couple, just right into that awkward place between young and old, and a seven year old daughter, the same age as him, but oh so much different.

The girl, he thinks, could do with actually matching the atmosphere of her family. She’s loud and excited, ruins the whole feel of the otherwise quiet lunchtime, and immediately starts bothering him while he’s trying to read a book on transformation spells he found interesting.

He hates those kinds of kids. He grew in a quiet, serious environment, so someone like her, who drags his name — Kashiwagi Jin — out of him by force, was not welcome in his life.

So obviously, as the weeks pass, they become best friends.

 

When he’s ten, his mother passes.

It was expected; she was old, very old. Probably older than a normal human should be. But that doesn’t change anything; she’s gone and he’s all alone now.

Mukuro disagrees; You still have me. And as much as he hates to admit, she really is the only thing he has left, other than a dusty library full of magic books he can’t ever hope to understand by himself. Even though he no longer has a guardian, no one ever comes for him. He starts living by himself in a big, empty house.

No… It’s not empty when Mukuro fills with cheer and laughter.

 

When he’s eleven, he starts being bullied. Of course he is; he had been homeschooled up until now, he’s quiet and weird and his mother was a _witch_. He’s also scrawny and weak, and can’t fight back once the assaults go from verbal to physical.

He hides it, and he does it well. He always did. But when the Kuze girl, Mukuro, finds out, she’s livid. She finds rage within herself that she never knew existed; never knew she _could_  have, as she had always believed in kindness and forgiveness before everything else. She’s also very, very mad at Jin for never telling her, for not trusting her.

She ends up on the principal’s office one, two, ten times. Every time, the punishment she delivers to the bullies gets worse, and so is her own. He, however, only ends up getting even more teased for needing a girl to protect him. He decides he needs to put a stop to this, for everyone’s sake.

He asks her to stop. There’s no need to protect someone like him, to risk her education for something like this. He can handle it himself, so please stop it. You’ll end up hurting yourself.

 

On the eighteenth time, she’s invited to change schools.

Her parents have never been so disappointed, they say to her. She’s grounded for an unreasonably long time, and enrolls in a school unreasonably far from her home.

He apologizes every night, for one year. One more year later, when he’s thirteen, he finally enrolls into her new school. He continues to apologize every day in class, even after she nearly slaps him. It’s fine, she says; it’s not your fault. It was never your fault.

He starts to think maybe he loves her.

 

When they’re fourteen, she starts growing into a fine lady, he thinks. Her lips are fuller, her curves are more pronounced, her voice gets deeper; but it still has that annoyingly cheerful tone. She makes friends easily, so she has connections all over school.

Him, not quite. He’s growing taller, that’s for sure, but also paler and maybe thinner. He has a permanent frown and bags under his eyes. At least, he muses, people are scared enough of his zombie-like appearance that he’s never been bullied again.

People wonder how exactly these two came together, since they look nearly out of place next to each other. But they’re nothing but childhood friends… that’s the whole story.

There’s nothing special connecting them, he thinks to himself.

 

When they’re fifteen, an exchange student from the west comes to their class.

He’s tall and bulky and _manly_ , or as manly as a sixteen year old can be. He has a gentle expression when he walks into the room, and his accent is not the same annoying one Jin had heard from so many caricaturized television characters; his accent was, if anything, _endearing_.

On the first week, people flocked to the new guy, like moths to a flame. Mukuro, too, joined in, but she wasn’t nearly as forceful as the other girls. It may not look like it, but she was raised in a fine family, he reminds himself. A family that nearly disowned her.

Once the excitement dies down, she sticks around, and the new guy can feel her confidence. He puts his trust in her, and calls her his first friend in the new school; no, not just that. His first friend in Japan, he says with a wide, wide smile.

For the first time in his life, Jin feels like punching someone’s face in. Coincidentally, he also feels like Daryl Crescent’s face should be punched in by someone.

He starts to think that, damn, he actually does love her.

 

Much to his dismay, however, it’s hard to _actually hate_ Daryl.

Daryl is european, but he’s perfectly adapted to japanese society within a few months. No, maybe he’s always been like this... Kind and polite, and despite being quite a bit more muscular than Jin, he looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly.

He’s responsible and mature; he gets a part-time job at a “pet shop and rescue center”. Daryl loves animals; especially the calm ones and the small ones, like cats and hamsters, he elaborates. He’d been offered a full-time position, which he only rejected because of school.

Daryl is also smart; in such a short time, he lands into second place between the scores of the whole school, losing only to Jin’s perfect A’s. In England, he used to study at a private, boarding school, he explains; a very expensive, high profile one.

He doesn’t tell why he took the exchange program to come to a public japanese school. Jin feels like it’s something he’ll tell them when he’s ready, or maybe not at all.

The three of them start doing everything together, but Jin can’t help but feel like he’s dragging them down; a dark cloud in an otherwise sunny, clear day.

He thinks maybe Mukuro would be better off with Daryl. Without _him_.

 

When they’re sixteen, he’s _sure_.

What he’s _not_  sure of, though, is why exactly they insist on bringing him everywhere with them. It’s annoying, really. It’s very clear that Mukuro and Daryl are interested in each other. He’ll treat her to all sorts of food and sweets, they always play games together, they’re so incredibly happy and warm and _radiant_ when they’re side by side.

So, really, Jin can’t understand why they haven’t kicked him out, yet. They’re probably just too nice, too polite. Please reject me, he says to himself, and only himself to hear.

His mother would’ve been there with the comforting, wise words of an old sorcerer. But she’s not here for him; she hasn’t been for years. He only has her books.

He looks into spells and hexes that would “force people to speak nothing but the truth”, so the two of them could be honest and tell him off. But he realizes he’s too scared to use them.

Jin really, really doesn’t want to lose his only friends. How lame. How selfish.

 

Daryl finds him sitting, rain soaked and crying, on a corner of the school courtyard. What are you doing, stupid, he says; you’ll get a cold. He knows Jin’s health is weak. He’s heard the stories from Mukuro, so he’s also worried Jin started getting bullied again. When Jin brushes him off, saying it’s not that, he’s relieved.

(But the worry is still very much there. If not that, then _what_?)

He understands now is not the time for questioning, though, so Daryl just flashes him a kind, warm smile — the sort that makes Jin almost forget the sky was cloudy and raining —  and leans down. Shares his umbrella with Jin without a second thought.

That’s not something you do here in Japan, you idiot, Jin replies. That’s for couples only. But in his head, he’s going, oh no.

He might be a little bit in love with him, too.

_That’s going to be a PR nightmare._

 

Much to his dismay, they notice he’s distant.

Not physically; they still drag him along everywhere they go. But he’s become even quieter, and won’t even give off his usual cues like nodding and gesturing. He’s avoiding making any sort of contact with them.

Daryl is worried; Mukuro is _terrified_. The last time he closed himself off was when they were eleven. She doesn’t like to remember; doesn’t like thinking about their situations back then. So they question him. Is it something we did? Have you gotten involved into something bad? Are you in danger? His only answer is that it’s complicated.

They hesitantly ask if he wants to be left alone for a while.

He says yes.

 

When they’re seventeen, Mukuro thinks she’s had enough.

As happy as Daryl makes her, life just isn’t the same without Jin. His constant presence, his snide comments and rationality were like a puzzle piece that went missing. She decides this has to end; things have to change. Daryl comes to the same conclusion, without her.

He corners the other boy after class. Jin spills it out, just a bit of it. Just the part about Mukuro, and feeling out of place. That’s all the other boy needs to know, really.

He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t laughter.

Daryl says he’s silly. Mukuro would never abandon Jin for romance; neither would he. That’s not how friendship works, and Jin is their friend. So don’t do that to her; to us.

Jin doesn’t really know why, but he feels lighter. Like some weight he had been carrying for a long time had been lifted from him. Yes, he had been silly. Whatever conflicting feelings he had were not worth sacrificing his friendships for.

So for the next week, he apologizes. Every day, every night, even after Daryl pouts so hard at him it looks like he might never smile again. It’s fine, he says; it wasn’t just your fault. It was everyone’s fault, we should have noticed something was wrong.

Ah, he’s heard something like that before, hasn’t he?

Mukuro feels like the entire planet has stopped. She feels like she’s in an alternate dimension, in a twilight zone, anywhere but her world.

She’s never, ever seen him flash out such a genuine smile before.

 

Things are awfully normal for a while.

Daryl and Mukuro start dating. Jin is jealous — for _both_ of them — but also glad. That he can still be friends with them, that they still want him around, glad that they’re happy together.

He’s never been less alone in his life. He even feels, dare he say, _content_.

So obviously, things don’t stay normal.

 

Jin finds something in his library. A fancy box (for jewelry, perhaps?), adorned with gold and some green gems he doesn’t know the name of. He thinks it’s something that used to belong to his mother. She never had many material possessions, so he’s very interested.

He can’t find a way to open it, though. So after mulling over it for nearly a month, he shows it to the other two.

Mukuro suggests throwing it off a high place. The other two immediately reject that idea.

Instead, the box decides to open at the slightest touch of Daryl’s fingers.

What they find inside is two beautiful, beautiful magic stones in the shape of roses, one red, the other blue; Jin can’t help but think of how ironic that is.

 

(Jin didn’t know it, had no way of knowing it, but as Daryl’s skin touched the box’s golden lock, as his warmth reached the _emerald, peridot, jade, there are no words in human language to name this stone_ , he heard voices; the voice of the box, the voice of the world, the voice of a dragon very close and oh so far away—

 

_ah, when this world was born,_

 

_it came with an expiration date;_

 

 _is your pure heart enough to help me extend it?_ )

 

 

(But when Jin was handed the golden lock as a consolation prize, due to the box not holding a third magic rose, he could swear he heard it whisper in his ear, too.)

 

* * *

 

 

By the end of their first adventure, Mukuro finds out she is pregnant.

So, on the day they say their last goodbyes, as they watch their new friends walk into a portal (from which they will only walk out of again years in the future, with dire news and a brown-haired newborn with mismatched eyes—), she lets out a proposal.

Literally.

 

 _Hey, we should get married_ , she says, as if it wasn’t a big deal; and it really wasn’t. The baby she’s carrying will need parents, she mentions; and surely there are other advantages to being married as well, aren’t there?

Not two moments later, Daryl nods and agrees - what a fantastic idea. He also adds that he sees no reason _not_ to do it. Why, they probably should have done it a while ago.

Jin’s heart drops, and he feels _bitter_ , but also not that much; he always knew this is how it would end, the two of them together.

He can picture it perfectly in his mind: Daryl in a fancy, dark blue tuxedo, looking royal and proper and dashing, and Mukuro in a blood-red dress with black lace that would look more fitting at a goth party or a funeral, but she wears it down the aisle with confidence and convinces everyone that she’s the happiest bride in the world.

And himself, he thinks, would be nothing more than the best man; he stands out more than a simple guest, and his role is far from insignificant, but he dares not take the spotlight away from the groom. No, he’s there to support them and help them forward in this new phase of their lives.

 

So, when he congratulates the newly engaged couple, he can’t quite understand the bewildered and confused looks they shoot him. Maybe the slight jealousy he feels - for _both_  of them, he should add - made it out through his tone, despite his friendly words. He can’t exactly tell, as the trio just looks at each other for a solid minute and a half with no words exchanged.

The brunette points a perplexed pout at him and asks, _wait, are you rejecting us? really?_ , and that’s when it finally hits him. And they notice it, too, because his eyes go wide and his eyebrows furrow and he makes an odd strangled noise, even adding some stiff hand motions in for good measure.

Mukuro lets out a hysterical laugh, but Daryl just curves his lips gently — damn that smile of his! — and tells him calmly that _they wouldn’t dream of doing something like this without you, Jin,_  and if he’s gonna be honest, he kind of feels like crying, and laughing, and maybe kicking something until it’s crushed by the sheer emotion he’s feeling right now.

 

Despite the protests from his brain, he decides to ignore the fact that it’s impossible for one person to marry two at the same time.


	6. A wasted life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 220 - Progress
> 
> An oldie. Thought I'd transfer it over here to minimize the clutter in my works page.  
> Featuring [X and Yuuki](http://fourze.tumblr.com/post/94580887105/todays-812-and-i-completely-forgot-so-i-had).

The first time he's allowed to have visitors is one year and a half later. The first time he's allowed to speak to someone other than doctors.

On the other side of the glass, he sees a familiar face. One that's attached to a body he almost fails to recognize. Her green eyes shine with something unknown -- tears? -- and she wears a police uniform, unmistakable. Though he'd guess by her badge that she'd just been admitted and is at the lowest possible rank.

He expects curses and anger, but what she gives him is a smile laced with sadness. Her voice is as unshaken and straight as it had always been. A girl of few doubts, now a woman full of certainty.

She starts with a simple, "hello". He responds with a nod. And then, silence. Neither of them quite knew how to continue this.

An easy topic, he decided. "How old are you now? Eighteen?" He smiled, but it didn't look like a happy one.

"Nineteen", she corrected. "It's August now, right? My birthday was a couple of months ago."

"Congratulations, then." He nods again. "I didn't realize it was already August... My own is coming up, then."

"How old would that make you? Two hundred fifty nine?" She grinned, a short laugh escaping her.

"How very rude."

She knew exactly how old he'd be once the 12th rolled over, and he realized that she did. One hundred fourteen. He flashed her a genuine smile, just as a sign that he knew she was joking.

"So, that means that in a bit over three months, Kaoru will be sixteen." She completed.

The twins would have been seventeen, then.

His smile vanishes.

"So young, all of you." He sighs. "But interesting, how it took a bunch of youngsters to make me realize how wrong I was."

"...Are you doing well?" She finally asks. "We've- you know-- Every one of us. Been going to appointments ever since that day. It's helped a lot."

"I'd say the same." He nods, doing everything he can to avoid eye contact. Not because he's being dishonest, but because he's ashamed. "But I have a long way to go, still.

She smiles in a way that comforts him; It's quite odd to see such a young girl feel so... motherly. "Oh no, I understand. It's not like we've been  _fixed_  or anything like that... But progress. It's happening."

"I can see that. You look so much more lively. And mature, too; I'm impressed."

"What's that supposed to mean, huh?"

He chuckles. Guess she's still the same, deep down. "Have you and Kaoru kept in touch? I wouldn't put it past you to have been too traumatized to..."

"Nah. If anything, it's made us even closer. But he's got his own friends to worry about." Her face scrunches up, likely due to some unpleasant memory of his friends. "We actually planned to come together, but he couldn't make it. No matter how much I talked up to the staff, they didn't want an underage kid talking to a convicted murderer. Much less one that's been deemed mentally unstable and too violent to be in society."

"Oh, I understand that. In fact, you shouldn't be here either. Go live your own life." He makes gestures towards her clothes. Or at least, as much of a gesture as his handcuffs will allow. "Show them what you've got. I won't accept you coming back here until you're at least superintendent."

"It's what I'm aiming towards." She flashes him a proud smile. "Someday, I'll be the chief of the NPA, just you wait and see."

"Glad to see you have your future all planned out, at the very least."

"What about you? What will you do when you're free to go?"

"There's a long time until that." He grimaces, while still trying to cover it with a smile. "I'll figure it out until then, I'm sure."

 _But when you've lived the past few decades with "dying" as your only goal, it's hard to find a new one_ , are the words he never said.


	7. Three in the afternoon, just like that day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme 10 - Anniversary
> 
> Just a stream of consciousness thing with lots of italics, featuring [The AU Where Everyone Wears Brown](http://fourze.tumblr.com/tagged/the-au-where-everyone-wears-brown).

"Three years."

It had been a quiet afternoon, easy, calm, until he brought that up.

The smaller boy looked at the calendar, and there it was.

"Ah, you're right."

February 2019.

"Three years since you fucked everything _unbelievably_ up." He flashes his trademark toothy smile, one visible eye scrunched up at the corner. That kind of smile that terrified children at the park. "How's it feel?"

Three years since he tried to summon a demon.

"Not much different." The other shrugs. "I thought things would be much different, but in the end I'm just sitting here eating instant noodles in my pajamas just like I was before."

There's a beat of silence, a huff of breath that he's since learned to identify as the bound demon's "thinking sound".

Another moment, and, "If you'd just summoned the right demon, well, you'd definitely be doing _not that_."

His low chuckle rumbles in his chest, full of the knowledge that he's saying the truth, as vague as it is.

"Yeah. I'd probably be doing something far more productive." The boy nods against his larger friend's shoulder. "I'd probably also not have a robot _or_ a demon in my apartment."

"Shoosh, that demon's gonna hear you badmouth him."

The short one tries to hold back a laugh, though there's not much of a point to it. "I _can_ just send you back to Hell."

"Then who's going to be your pillow when you need to sit around eating garbage?" He shifts slightly, throwing his arm over the other boy's shoulder. "Urze doesn't have these amazing muscles. Or _any_  muscles for that matter. He's a robot."

"Still a better cuddle partner than you."

No one needs to even look at his face to know he's smiling; it carries flawlessly through his voice. "Honestly, I can't really deny that. He's sure better at it than you. You just keep paying attention to your noodles..."

"You know I can also throw these noodles at your face."

"You like my face too much for that."

"I hate when you're right."


End file.
